RE: btp is a teacher now
11-02-2012, 02:14 AM
Nah, you guys don't understand how incredibly unimportant this messed up formula is, like, it has absolutely no bearing on their understanding of the material or anything. They don't even get to keep the paper I gave it to them on, it has effectively been erased from existence.
Besides, the only thing bringing it up to these kids now would do is confuse them and potentially lower their grades.
SPEAKING OF WHICH It seems I made my fellow physics teachers a little miffed by grading the aforementioned assignment a tad too leniently. Aka, nobody failed, even with lousy work. Seeing how the entirety of the assignment was 20% of their six weeks grade, I can understand how that would skew the numbers.
BUT HEY IT WAS A FUN ASSIGNMENT!
Basically, in our physics meeting, we were discussing what sort of project we should do this six weeks, and I thought: "oh hey, wheat said we should do trebuchets and such, and I really liked my old catapult project, maybe I can mention something like that". Sure enough, when I brought up the subject one of the other teachers' eyes lit up and she started pulling up old rubrics for a catapult style launching contest project.
Now, there were limitations (those being that you had to use a mousetrap as your launching force), but everything else was pretty much fair game. The students had to design "professional looking blueprints" Of which I received maybe 6, and the rest got 15 out of the 20 points for that.
Then we had a few work days, and then a launch day. During said launch day I figured: "HEY LETS DO THIS OUTSIDE".
After I dragged 30 students outside I recalled that Houston mornings are a wonderful mix of humidity and mosquitoes. So basically those students that wanted to wait indoors (all of them) did so, while I let those launching from their catapults take turns outside.
BUT ACTUALLY THE WEATHER GOT NICER AND IT TURNED INTO A GREAT PROJECT.
And then I told the students some gibberish about how this all related to F=ma and how long throwing arms give you height but cut down on your acceleration - which is what counts and then I gave them a formula to derive their initial velocity by just knowing their range and their angle (THAT FORMULA WAS WRONG AND I'M NOT CERTAIN WHY - p.s. haven't looked into it, probably wont) and then they calculated their values and talked about how they could have made it better.
THEN THEY ALL PASSED WOO!
We're doing an egg-drop project next so that should be fun.
Besides, the only thing bringing it up to these kids now would do is confuse them and potentially lower their grades.
SPEAKING OF WHICH It seems I made my fellow physics teachers a little miffed by grading the aforementioned assignment a tad too leniently. Aka, nobody failed, even with lousy work. Seeing how the entirety of the assignment was 20% of their six weeks grade, I can understand how that would skew the numbers.
BUT HEY IT WAS A FUN ASSIGNMENT!
Basically, in our physics meeting, we were discussing what sort of project we should do this six weeks, and I thought: "oh hey, wheat said we should do trebuchets and such, and I really liked my old catapult project, maybe I can mention something like that". Sure enough, when I brought up the subject one of the other teachers' eyes lit up and she started pulling up old rubrics for a catapult style launching contest project.
Now, there were limitations (those being that you had to use a mousetrap as your launching force), but everything else was pretty much fair game. The students had to design "professional looking blueprints" Of which I received maybe 6, and the rest got 15 out of the 20 points for that.
Then we had a few work days, and then a launch day. During said launch day I figured: "HEY LETS DO THIS OUTSIDE".
After I dragged 30 students outside I recalled that Houston mornings are a wonderful mix of humidity and mosquitoes. So basically those students that wanted to wait indoors (all of them) did so, while I let those launching from their catapults take turns outside.
BUT ACTUALLY THE WEATHER GOT NICER AND IT TURNED INTO A GREAT PROJECT.
And then I told the students some gibberish about how this all related to F=ma and how long throwing arms give you height but cut down on your acceleration - which is what counts and then I gave them a formula to derive their initial velocity by just knowing their range and their angle (THAT FORMULA WAS WRONG AND I'M NOT CERTAIN WHY - p.s. haven't looked into it, probably wont) and then they calculated their values and talked about how they could have made it better.
THEN THEY ALL PASSED WOO!
We're doing an egg-drop project next so that should be fun.
Spoiler